Late Night Live — Full program podcast

US President Donald Trump’s threatened deportation of up to twenty million immigrants brings back tough memories for Japanese Americans who were deported in World War Two. Plus the New Yorker's head fact checker, Fergus McIntosh.

Vancouver decriminalised possession of small quantities of drugs for personal use in 2023. Then drug deaths sky-rocketed. So did the experiment fail, or were there other factors at play? Plus Tibet is one of the most linguistically diverse regions on the planet, but Mandarin is encroaching and the old languages are disappearing. 

Ian Dunt on the fall-out between Nigel Farage and Elon Musk. Plus what Greenlanders think of Trump's push to the buy the icy island. 

As the Australia Day weekend comes to a close, leading social researchers Rebecca Huntley and Anthea Hancocks break down what the latest data says about who we are as a nation in 2025. Plus, Anna Clark muses on the history of the Australian beach shack.

What happens when child soldiers grow up and have children of their own? A new inter-generational study looks at the former child soldiers of Sierra Leone. Plus when a glamorous life is revealed to be a lie. 

While anti-Semitic attacks in Australia and America appear to be on the rise, Jewish journalism professor and author Peter Beinart argues that Israel's actions in Gaza and the West Bank have made Jews around the world a target.  Plus how Coca-Cola infiltrated academia, and meddled with the science of obesity to protect their profits in America, China and beyond. 

Regular US commentator Bruce Shapiro in an extended segment to talk inauguration and more. And journalist Dima Khatib was on the first commercial flight back into her home city of Damascus, after the fall of the Assad regime.  

Laura Tingle looks at how the major parties spent their summer as the shadow election campaign takes off. A landmark agreement for workers on Pacific fishing boats. Plus the role of eucalyptus trees in the LA fires, and how they've become an invasive species around the world. 

Stephen Fry (UK) ets candid on storytelling, impostor syndrome, and the things he’s hilariously hopeless at. Wise, witty, and wonderfully self-deprecating—this is Fry at his finest.

Since the 1980s, lawyers have used copyright law to protect Indigenous Art, but is it fit for purpose? When India gained its independence, a huge part of the country was ruled by many local princes or Maharajas. How were they convinced to give up their power to join the new Independent India?

Antonia Murphy recounts her stranger-than-fiction experience, running an ethical escort agency in New Zealand. And historian Alexis Peris uncovers a bundle of letters exchanged between women in the US and the Soviet Union, across the Iron Curtain. 

The deep connections between banks and the conservative Catholic order, Opus Dei.  Plus how Australia's birds had songs millions of years before they reached Europe, Asia, Africa or the Americas.  

Alfred Dreyfus was an officer in the French Army when he was arrested 130 years ago for treason, convicted and sent to Devils Island for 5 years in solitary confinement.  His battle for justice divided the population of France and fascinated people across the globe.  

Santilla Chingaipe tells the stories of the 15 convicts of African descent that came with the first fleet, and the hundreds that followed. How does their story fit in the story of the global slave trade? And what truth is there to the mystical powers of absinthe both in the past and its current form? Is it more myth than magic? Evan Rail investigates. 

Australian-born writer and honorary madrileño Luke Stegemann celebrates the remarkable and under-appreciated Spanish capital of Madrid. And a new exhibition brings medieval women back to life. 

Did you know passports can be ranked, and can be different even within nations?  Patrick Bixby examines the history of passports. Plus what Harry Houdini got up to when he visited Australia. 

Author Henry Savery is credited with being Australia's first novelist, for his work 'Quintus Servinton', but in his new book author and historian Sean Doyle says in fact the first Autralian-born novelist was John Lang. Plus the challenge to save the world's islands and their inhabitants from the triple threat threat of invasive species, sea level rises and global heating.

Insights into some of the hundreds of Australian indigenous languages, which continue to evolve. And what can be learnt from spending a lot of time with a small herd of cows.  

UK poet laureate Simon Armitage reflects on his Yorkshire upbringing, writing great royal deaths and coronations, and his fear and love for nature. Plus, ornithologist Penny Olsen celebrates the historic detection of a population of rare night parrots, in WA's Great Sandy Desert. 

War historian Joan Beaumont makes a pilgrimage to the Indonesian island of Ambon, where hundreds of Australian soldiers died in WWll, and ponders the meaning of connection to past war traumas. Plus, remembering Tadeusz Kosciuszko  - who was he, and why was he so revered? 

Art critic Sebastian Smee on why 1870 was an "annus horribilis" for Paris, but one which produced breathtaking art. Plus, love them or hate them, the humble anchovy has an important place in cuisine around the world. But we're fishing them right out of the seas.  

In the early years of AIDS,  nurses were stigmatised along with their patients. Now, their story has been told. Plus the great Australian poetry hoax, eighty years on. 

Writer Sonia Purnell reveals the astonishing life of Pamela Churchill Harriman, one of the most significant women in 20th century politics. Plus why are Balkan countries fighting over the origins of their national dishes?

In Guatemala private adoption agencies sent huge numbers of babies overseas - with many of them indigenous. And on Flinders Island in the Bass Strait, restoration work on the Aboriginal settlement Wybalenna has stalled. It is a significant cultural site where many Tasmanian Aboriginal people were sent in 1831. Only 47 survived.

What is the soul? Is it a substance, your conscience or simply a creation of the mind? Most societies and religions have some concept of the soul. Historian Paul Ham has looked at how the idea has changed through history and across cultures.  Guest: Paul Ham, author of The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin Random House) Originally broadcast on 1 August 2024